1. United States
2. Ohio
3. Letter

I am writing to urge you to protect our communities by investigating and stopping predatory private equity practices that are inflating the costs of essential public safety equipment. Private equity firms are systematically buying up the software platforms, emergency radio manufacturers, fire truck builders, and flame-retardant chemical companies that our communities rely on. This is dealing a devastating blow to volunteer fire departments, which make up roughly 85 percent of the departments across our country and operate on shoestring budgets. The real-world consequences are terrifying. In one documented case, a small town's emergency tracking software skyrocketed from $795 to $5,000 a year overnight after a corporate buyout. Volunteer firefighters across the country report waiting years for replacement parts, or worse, answering emergency calls in trucks with faulty brakes because small towns have been priced out of basic maintenance. When wealthy investors wipe out all competition, local taxpayers are forced to foot the bill just to keep the lights on at the firehouse. Public safety is a core duty of government, and Wall Street investors should never be allowed to profit by compromising the safety of our first responders. I urge you to put public safety and fiscal responsibility ahead of corporate plundering by supporting legislation that: 1. Investigates and strictly limits private equity ownership and anti-competitive consolidation within critical public safety and emergency response industries. 2. Closes the carried interest tax loophole, which allows private equity managers to pay a lower tax rate than the very firefighters and local taxpayers they are pricing out. 3. Directs antitrust regulators, like the FTC, to aggressively investigate and block predatory pricing and delivery backlogs in the emergency vehicle and equipment markets. Please protect our local first responders and the communities they risk their lives to serve.